You’ve slaved away and completed enough regular bounties that it finally came in the mail, your first exotic bounty. Each time you receive an exotic telegram you’ll be asked to choose from 3 different bounties, each of which will offer a different exotic weapon at its completion. If you happened to have chosen “A Light in the Dark” your prize will be Thorn, one of the best Hand Cannons in the game both in the looks and performance department.

Great news! You must be thinking, well unfortunately getting the bounty is still miles away from having the gun in your inventory. In fact, the Light in the Dark exotic bounty is arguably the most difficult to complete of them all. But here you are, with the bounty in your inventory and the dream of seeing that hand cannon sitting in your primary weapon slot.

While the tasks required of each stage in the bounty are pretty self explanatory in their description text, this guide is here to help you go about it in the most efficient, painless way. If you’ve found a more effective method for a step in the bounty, let us know in the comments.

There are five parts to the Thorn quest line, which vary in difficulty from the very easy (buying something from a vendor) to the very difficult (getting 500 points from kills in the crucible using only void weapons/ abilities).

Step 1: Complete the Summoning Pits

The first step is deceivingly simple; just beat the summoning pits strike on any difficulty. Enjoy this walk in the park because it only gets more difficult afterwards.

Step 2: Obtain 500 Hive Points by Killing Hive on the Moon

Ok, so it’s not crazy difficult so far but this part of the bounty still takes a bit of work. Each regular hive creature will yield 2 points when killed, hallowed Hive give 20 (yellow health bars), and Ultra Hive (I.E. Phogoth, and other bosses) give 50 points.

There are a couple quick ways to do this one, the first is to camp the temple entrance, farming the Hive as they come and killing the odd Hallowed Knight.

The second method is to run the Summoning Pits 2 or three times. Just Phogoth alone will net you 50 points, and another bonus is that any kills made by your fire team members will go towards your total. Another added benefit of this method is that you get the vanguard points and experience for running a strike.

By far the most tedious part of the bounty that gives everyone the most trouble and for good reason. For one you are restricted to using void damage (weapons or abilities), which of course rules out any kills with almost all primary weapons. Hunters will be at even bigger disadvantage due to their lack of any void abilities whatsoever. The Titan and Warlock each have a void sub-class that should be used to increase your void arsenal. Titan Defenders will benefit from their grenades that do void damage, while the Warlock Voidwalker’s are the best off as most of their abilities do void damage, even the melee attack.

Each kill with Void damage will give you 5 points towards your total, and each death will bring your total down by 2. That means that if you have a really bad run it is possible to undo any progress you had made previously so try to play it safe and get killed as little as possible (easier said than done).

Make sure both your special and heavy weapons do void damage, and if your class has any void abilities, equip them. Void machine guns are especially good to have because your heavy ammo pickups will last a lot longer than if they were going towards rockets.

Once you’re equipped and ready to go, it all comes down to your skill in the Crucible. Pick the game mode you’re most comfortable with, and keep that K/D ratio above 1.0, and you’ll complete the bounty eventually. If you’ve got no clue about the crucible and have no idea how to begin, here are some tips for getting started.

Control maps are great for ambushing players as they go for the capture. Any opportunity you can use to get the jump on a guardian will greatly increase your chances of getting out of there alive.

Master the shotgun slide. This is a PvP must have in my opinion. It’s easy enough to pull off: run towards your target and slide just before you reach them, firing as you come into range. This move is very effective at keeping the user alive because it gives your enemies a much smaller target to hit and speeds you up at the last second, just what you need for completing this bounty.

Rumble is good game mode to play for this bounty once you’ve become comfortable in PvP. Everyone can be shot, giving you more targets and thus more potential kills, and you can skirt around the edges of the map jumping into the fray when your enemies are weak, snagging easy kills.

Step 4:Obtain Infusion of Light From Speaker

Go to the speaker and buy an infusion of light. It will cost you one mote of light, which you should have handy from playing all of those crucible matches.

Step 5: Kill Xyor the Unwed in the Summoning Pits Strike

When you reach step 5, a special lvl 26 version of the Summoning Pits will become available on the moon. This strike does not appear on the playlist so you better start recruiting some friends to help you complete it.

The strike plays out exactly like the regular one, only Xyor the Unwed will spawn in the final Phogoth area along with the third wave of enemies from the tomb ships. This means that Phogoth must live long enough for the third wave to appear. Killing him will end the strike and the coming of Xyor, so hold off until you’ve sealed the deal.

There’s nothing special to the Xyor fight, but it’s important to note that you do not need to complete the strike itself for the bounty. Once Xyor is down the job is done, so make sure you and your team focus fire on him as soon as he shows up to avoid any wipes by Phogoth or the other rampaging knights and wizards.

After that all you need to do is return to the tower and collect your reward. Congratulations! You have one of the most sought after hand cannons in the game.

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About The Author

A man of many hats, Greg divides his precious gaming time between competitive games like League of Legends and Dota 2 and Action/ Adventure Games like GTA, and Destiny. At Ten Ton Hammer he specializes in making guides for new and veteran players alike.